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You can multiply your own power bill by 300,000 if money is a more relatable unit.




These discussions often turn into a ‘is this per hour? Per year?’ Discussion, which I find irritating. And now I’m that guy.

Is this a daily usage thing? I test based on my home usage and the numbers seem way out. I use about 25kWh per day.


Isnt 3000x more per day, the same as 3000x more per year? Or 3000x more per unit price?

I have a smaller house, we use about 13kWh per day. 4kw highest spike during the day around 5-7pm when people are cooking and doing laundry.


I was trying to work backwards to see what they were using as their ‘per house’ measure.

Your usage is very low. Do you use electricity for water heating and cooking? If so, that’s impressive.

We do, and charge a car.


Oh I see okay yeah.

Used to have one electric car but it was on a separate meter with unlimited charging for $40/mo (just looked, now its $46). Added a few hundred to the charger install originally.

We really don't do too much around the house. Three people. One TV running maybe two sometimes. Two desktops (well one is laptop with a dock). A random PC as a server. Everything electric (oven, range, water heater, filtration, etc) besides furnace (nat gas), although I will say they are all new and pretty energy efficient. Random lights (all LED, Hue). Someone turns on an electric heater or blanket here or there. Some outside heated cat house and water heaters and stuff. In Michigan so its pretty cold right now.

I recently bought a bunch of (used) solar panels and was doing our load calculations for peak draw and selecting battery size.

How much of your usage is the car? I could imagine that would be a lot. A single model 3 refill (57kwh) would be almost 5 days of my usage.

edit: I'm dumb. We replaced our electric water heater a few months ago with a tankless gas. I don't feel like rewriting this reply but just keep in mind.

I would eventually like to replace the furnace and the water heater with electric so I can end gas service to my house. I do feel its the safest and in the future we will be looked back on as backwards. "They used to pump a flammable gas directly into their houses!"


The car isn’t heavily used but averages about 6-8kWh per day.

With solar we are making a ton more power than we are using at the moment, it’s a sunny summer and we are managing to export something like 8x the power we are drawing from the grid.


How much solar do you have? Any battery? What rate does your power company give you?

I recently bought 30 600w panels that were used, apparently they used to be on a GM parking lot canopy but got uninstalled during covid lockdown and were in storage for ~4 years. I got a great price and I've tested ~30% and they are all in spec.

We pay ~$0.23 per kwh all in (supply, distribution, etc). Our provider (DTE) only pays ~$0.08 per kwh we supply, and its a credit and maxed out at our bill amount. So if we spend $200 on energy, we can only get $200 off. Which does mean free electricity, but also means no profit.

We use about ~1000kwh a month, our 30 panels can generate about ~3000kwh a month. Could deploy just 10 panels and resell or do better with batteries but the resell market does not make sense for me.


I know it’s not the point you’re making but I’ll never not be surprised by how much electricity some people consume. The highest month I have recorded over the past 3 years is ~9kWh/day.

Last month it was 7. And we’re in the winter. Over the summer is more like 5.


A third of my bill is the "base services" charge.



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